Research

My current projects include a book on Wang Yangming and his followers, further developing a “progressive Confucian” perspective within contemporary Confucian philosophy, and exploring the relation between philosophy (Confucian and otherwise) and practice.  Other interests include virtue ethics and empirical moral psychology, and their relations with Confucianism.

Books

Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
《人权与中国思想：一种跨文化的探索》 Huang Jinrong and Huang Binyi, trans. (Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2012)  [Chinese translation of Human Rights and Chinese Thought]
The Chinese Human Rights Reader: Documents and Commentary, 1900-2000, Co-editor and co-translator, with Marina Svensson (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2001)
Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; Paperback edition, 2012)
《圣境：宋明理学的当代意义》,  Wu Wanwei, trans. (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2017) [Chinese translation of Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy]
Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism (Oxford: Polity Press, 2012)
《当代儒家政治哲学：进步儒学发凡》, 韩华, trans. (Beijing: Jiangxi People’s Press, 2015) [Chinese translation of Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy]
진보적 유학을 향하여: 현대 유학의 정치철학. Seonjung Kim and Minjeong Baek, trans. (Seoul: Ehaksa Publishing, 2024) [Korean translation of Toward Progressive Confucianism]
Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, Co-editor with Michael Slote (New York: Routledge, 2013)
  Neo-Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction, Co-author with Justin Tiwald (Oxford: Polity Press, 2017)
Growing Moral: A Confucian Guide to Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022)
Progressive Confucianism and Its Critics: Dialogues from the Confucian Heartland (New York: Routledge, 2025)

Video and Audio

YouTube Interview: Progressive Confucianism, Ritual, and Martial Law in Korea (2024)
YouTube Interview: Progressive Confucianism in Korea and Cancel Culture (2024)
四海为学 Collaborative Learning On-Line Lecture: Growing Moral: Living as a Progressive Confucian in the Twenty-First Century (2022)
In Search of Wisdom podcast: “Stephen Angle, Growing Moral: A Confucian Guide to Life” (2022)
Grace Farms Books on Faith & Meaning, “Growing Moral with Steve Angle” (2022)
Philosophy as a Way of Life Podcast, “Stephen Angle on Growing Moral with Confucius” (2022)
Grace Farms Books on Faith & Meaning, “The Analects of Confucius” (2021)
“Teaching East Asia in the Humanities” conference presentation, “Learning by Living: Confucian and Daoist Philosophical Exercises” (2021)
Oxford Philiminality podcast, “The Analects and Modern Moral Philosophy” (2021)
ChinaDaily.com interview, “Cultural implications behind the revival of Confucianism” (2017)
China Social Sciences TV interview, “Cultural Modernization is not Equivalent to Westernization” (2016)
Julian Baggini interviews Stephen C. Angle, Joseph Chan, Michael Puett, and Justin Tiwald on “The Confucian Uses of Hierarchy” (2016)

On-line Papers

  • Most of my published papers (and the occasional unpublished work-in-progress) are archived at Wesleyan’s digital archive.
  • “Mou Zongsan and his Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy” — This essay was originally written to serve as an introduction to Julie Lee Wei’s translation of Mou Zongsan’s Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy. Due to an on-going copyright dispute, the publication of that translation is on hold, but it is now published online on www.nineteenlects.com. I have decided to make this essay freely available for non-commercial uses.

Projects, Past and Present